Many of you have seen that I have posted about the company Body Zone Swim that is using my pattern for one of their new swim suit line. I loved working with them - mostly because the founder is also a female entrapranuer that is totally rocking it - women working with women - love it! I wanted to give you an behind the scene peak about how I did the design process.

I started with this painting that I painted a few months before. I took a photo (so much easier then scanning) and imported it into Adobe Illustrator and used image trace to get the organic feeling shapes. I then worked with the individual shapes to re-work the pattern making sure that the shapes match on the top and the bottom - and then side to side. This puzzle is one of the most challenging but fun parts of pattern making. I love how the process of creating a repeat transforms a group of motifs into a new art piece. It is such a magical moment right before you see how the pattern repeats in large scale.

Art board of my repeat tile - you can see how the shapes match - top and bottom - side and side.

Final repeating pattern!

As a self taught pattern designer - skillshare classes have invaluable in learning how to create repeats. Bonnie Christine and Elizabeth Olwen have the best classes on all things pattern design and are a delight to learn from.

This is the final result - you can buy the suite below from Body Zone here - Or pick a style and add my pattern! This project was so much fun and I can't wait to continue to design and see where my patterns end up next! I would love to be in touch about any questions, collaboration, project ideas that you have - feel free to email me at Courtney@courtneybeyerdesign.com!!

I have been working on a few Valentine’s Day projects recently. I just launched my Esty shop with my Valentine’s day card line. Check it out ----> here. I have also been working on a fun Valentine’s Day tablescape idea inspired from my Flat Thanksgiving Tablescape. I wanted to create beautiful and fun pieces that could be used at home or at a restaurant. They are easy to make or I might sell these. Any interest?

Simple steps to creating flat Valentine’s Day tablescape:

Watercolor a few pieces of paper. I used more purples and pinks, but using just reds would also look amazing.

Once the paper is dry - draw or trace different size hearts on the painted paper using a pencil. I hand drew them.

Cut them out and place them on your table - that’s i

Drawing hearts with a pencil on the painted paper

All the hearts cut out.

At the Restaurant:

We went to the Left Bank in Menlo Park for a lovely french dinner. I brought the hearts in a folder and then when we sat down I laid them out on the table. Guys - I am sure you could arrange to have this pre-done - hint, hint. Our server loved them - she also appreciated that they did not get in way. I think the hearts work best on tablecloth but any table surface would be fine.

Food and drink is just placed right on top of the hearts

As our drinks and meal came out we just placed everything over of the hearts. The hearts added such a fun pop of color to the table but did not get in the way of the meal. They are also fun to play with during dinner and to write little love notes - hehe.

Sweet love notes written on the hearts during dinner.

Post dinner shot. The hearts moved around a little but never 'got in the way'.

My cute husband - indulging me as I test out my ideas!

At Home:

I set up a simple yet romantic tablescape with homemade candles (future blog post about how to make these), white plates, linens and the hearts. Even in dime lighting they create a beautiful design and add to the ambiance. You can always add flowers or other decor with the hearts but I wanted to show how the hearts can be stand alone.

Have you done something similar for Valentine’s day? Interested in purchasing these hearts? Let me know.

It is the third day of the new year, and my Christmas decorations are still up and it is drizzling outside. Before I take them down, I want to spend a little time reflecting on the holiday season. Christmas time always inspires me to create and make. From homemade gifts, to holiday decorations, to cooking for friends and family, I always have too many ideas and too little time. There was just no time to share during December so here is a peek back at some of my holiday projects!

Natural Tree Decorations

I decided to change things up this year and only decorated my (yes - fake) tree with all natural ornaments. I dried oranges, tangerines, lemons and limes to make ornaments and then strung popcorn and cranberries for a garland.

I was so happy with how the dried citrus turned out. The lights shined through the dried fruit at night looks like stained glass and was just beautiful. I am curious to see how everything holds up in storage and what I can use for next year.

Watercolor Holiday Cards

I wanted to learn the process of painting a design and then digitizing, and finally printing it on paper. I used our holidays cards as perfect opportunity. I had seen some beautiful wreaths on Instagram and wanted to paint my own! I painted a few wreaths and went with the most colorful option. I took a photo and then worked with my sister to edit it photoshop. Let’s just say I still have a lot to learn when editing hand painted designs in photoshop. I added text and saved the whole design. I used the TinyPrints “upload your own design” holiday card option, which let me use my wreath design for front of the card and then I added a few photos to the back. It was exactly what I wanted! I was so pleased with how they turned out and we got them mailed by the 27th of Dec!

Block Print Wrapping Paper and Cards

Throughout the year I keep the kraft paper that Amazon and other retailers use as stuffing in their shipments. The quality of the paper is really nice and comes in large squares perfect for wrapping paper. In the past I have kept the paper plain and used a festive ribbons, or written holiday sayings on the paper with a calligraphy pen. This year I decided to block print my wrapping paper.

I started with carving a few holiday stamps - leaves, holly berries, and poinsettia flowers. Using just red and green for every pattern helped make all my wrapping paper cohesive and the less “holiday” stamps still look holiday-y. I just had fun playing around with the stamps and seeing what patterns I could create.

A few of my gifts were gift cards so I made a few block print cards to hold the gift cards. It was my first time block printing on cards. I have a few ideas for the future!

A lesson learned only after I started wrapping my presents with the block printed paper was that my patterns needed to be tighter together. With some of my small gifts you could not really see the block printed patterns! It is only now that I realized I did not take any photo of the presents packages wrapped up. :-(.

Homemade Eggnog

One a cozy Saturday night in December, when I was stringing popcorn and cranberries, I asked my husband if he wanted to run to the store to get some eggnog. I had just purchased whole nutmegs and I wanted to grate fresh nutmeg over eggnog - hmm yum. He was already in his PJs and said no, I was also in my PJs, so I looked online to see if I could make homemade eggnog. After reading a few recipes I realized it was really easy and we had all the ingredients -eggs, milk, sugar, bourbon, and nutmeg. 30 mins later I was curled up on the couch, sipping homemade eggnog wondering how I got this far in life without it. It was so much better than store bought and without tons of preservatives. This is the recipe I used. One tweak to the recipe was that I stirred in freshly grated nutmeg and grated nutmeg on top right before serving.

Semi-homemade Candle Mugs

I had a plan to make all homemade gifts this year - that was a beautiful and crazy idea. The one semi-homemade gift I did make was: candle mugs for my sisters and mom. I bought beautiful mugs from Anthropologie and then made them into candles. I use soy wax which is super easy to melt, waxed wicks. They can use the candle and then when it burned down they can can easily clean out any extra wax and use it as a mug, or I will gladly make it into another candle. I think it is a fun idea to “dress up a gift”.

Any projects that you loved creating this past holiday season? Any wintery decorations that still work in January and February? I am sad to take down the tree but I am excited to start working on Valentine's Day projects!

I am usually in charge of tablescapes for my family’s holiday gatherings — which I love to do. We usually set up two long tables and I have a lot of space to design. We also have a buffet table so we never have to place platters or bowls on the dinner table itself. But this year we have rented a house for the long thanksgiving weekend, and although we are very excited, we are unsure about the kitchen and dining space at the rental. Therefore, I was tasked with creating a minimal tablescape that could accommodate a very full table. Never backing down from a challenge I came up with a festive, colorful idea that does not take up any table real estate: the flat tablescape!

I came up with a festive, colorful idea that does not take up any table real estate: the flat tablescape!

From crazy ideas of the past, I knew I had to create a prototype and get stakeholder buy in (my mom) before I went all in. I started with quick pencil and paper sketches, cut them out and arranged them on my table.

This confirmed that I was going in the right direction, but I was not sure if I liked the contrast between the white and dark wood or the actual look. I also knew if I was going to get buy in I need to add color to help my parents “get it”. I quickly painted the designs in watercolor. This also showed to me that if I did use watercolor, I would need to use heavy paper, to minimize curling.

The idea went over well and painting helped me see and balance the range of colors — I decided not to include persimmons — too much orange. We also came up with other ideas, drawing on a long runner of butcher block, or pinning the cutouts to a table runner. What we finally concluded was that we did not know the length of the table at the rental and so having individual cutouts will allow for flexibility.

I went back and started drawing on large watercolor paper. One of my sisters had the idea of drawing in ink-pen and then watercolor over. I did a mockup to see how it would look.

I was happy with the results and went forward with the rest of my drawings. For the leaves, I wanted them to have that “changing color” look. I drew all the leaves on the same page. Then painted the whole page with fall colors.

I then cut out all the designs and flattened them under a cutting board, books and weights over night. I think the paper is still not thick enough to sit 100% flat but if it was thicker it would be super hard to cut.

I created a full table mock up to see how it would look for Thanksgiving. This table is a lot shorter than the rental, so only using ⅔ of the cutouts, was a good sign that I made enough for Thanksgiving. For the tablescape I used a burlap table runner which helped frame the cutouts but also helped them stay in place. The table feels very, full, colorful, but platters, and bowls of delicious food can easily be placed on top of the cutouts.